Letter to the Editor — The truth hurts

This is in response to the letter of Capitol media consultant Sam Costanilla published last July 15. While we understand that he is paid for this job, we also feel the need to react to his statement. The truth, no matter how grim, is not something that we should hide. And sometimes, the truth hurts.

We need not go house-to-house to verify the fact that indeed, people are living in poverty, suffering from hunger, and deprived of basic services. The hardship the majority endures is not something easily whitewashed because of its severity, even if we do live in the Philippines' "premier province". We do not need statistics, or wide experience in governance for that matter, to see what the people really need.

True, roads and other infrastructures have been built, but hundreds of families have also been displaced. If our politicians have truly been roaming around the communities, they would see how desperately our children need more classrooms, how social services barely reach far-flung barangays, and how military abuse has victimized our peasant women and children.

There is an ocean of difference between visibility and genuine delivery, vision and perspective. No doubt, we are grateful for projects that have been useful and beneficial to communities, especially to women. But that is not the point. The point is framing the government's program in the context of what the people really need. And militarism, manifested in an all-out-war dogma, should have no place in any leader's agenda. We have had enough of all extrajudicial killings in the country and in Cebu to make us wary of militarist methods.

For a woman who suffers from society's double standards and crisis, social services and a solution to hunger is better appreciated than zero debt and an all-out-war policy.

We know that the task of governance is huge, especially for the province's first woman governor who may feel that she has a lot to prove. But the real measurement of good governance is not in proving how tough you can be but in putting the welfare of your constituents first by providing for their basic needs instead of catapulting them into war.

Leny G. Ocasiones
Voices of Women for Human Rights (VOW4HR)